That’s the question sticking in my mind after reading a recent report about a local radiology practice opening a large mammography center in an upscale shopping mall in Long Island, New York.
Let’s face it: Medical care is changing. And with changes come new ideas. Some will work, some won’t. The thought of getting a mammogram while on a shopping trip may just be what the doctor ordered ...

I am devoted to my fitness tracker, having used it for several years to remind me to be active, monitor my diet and improve my sleep. Now The New York Times tells me it doesn’t make a difference, at least when it comes to the weight loss part of the program. And I might agree if only the evidence they relied on told the whole ...

After years of declining rates of colorectal cancer (CRC), a study from the American Cancer Society raises the specter that not all is going as well as we would have hoped, especially among younger folks born since 1990. And that raises the question of what the future holds for this frequently preventable form of cancer, ...

Sometimes It’s important to know the news behind the news: the comments and the cautions that don’t get into the article that the public gets to read. It’s the sort of thing that keeps me up at night: trying to convey the reality, while realizing what most people want to hear is the hope.
That’s the problem I have with a story posted on a major news network website ...

4.9 million — yes, million — people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year in the United States. It costs an estimated $8.1 billion —with a “B — to treat those skin cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Do I have your attention? I hope so. The problem is we don’t have enough attention. There is no other way to ...

Are you a baby boomer? Have you been tested for hepatitis C virus (HCV)? Do you know why you should be tested for hepatitis C? Do you even know what hepatitis C is?
According to research published by my colleagues from the American Cancer Society in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the odds are overwhelming that if you are in the boomer generation you ...

When it comes to our health and our health care, we love the numbers. Sometimes, we even fall in love with the numbers, assuming that the numbers tell us the whole story when, in fact, that may not be the case. Cholesterol numbers, blood pressure numbers, body mass index, whatever. As patients and consumers, we are frequently defined by our numbers.
But what happens when those numbers and other medical tests, ...

Perhaps, doctors struggle more than most with memories that mark sad moments in their careers. For me, one of the most indelible was of a wonderful young man with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).
When I started my oncology career in the early 1970s, CML was almost always fatal. It would start with a chronic phase, which was treated with pretty simple medications. But those medications didn’t cure the disease.
The “almost always” ...

The recent announcement by a California company offering DNA blood tests (also known as "liquid biopsies") for the early detection of cancer takes us to a place most of us expected we would get to, but much earlier than we are prepared for. Simply stated, our technology and rush to get new tests to market -- even before we have a basic understanding of how to use those tests to improve the ...